That verbal spat between Elon Musk and Michael O’Leary was more than just a verbal spat: it was also in the end a clash of cultures and of mutually estranged ways of thinking.
Yes, it began with a standard exchange of Anglo-Saxon insult, easily understood on both sides of the Atlantic. First O’Leary called Musk an “idiot”, while also taking a sideswipe at serial “liar” Donald Trump.
Musk reciprocated with an added adjective, saying O’Leary was an “utter idiot”, and furthermore that he was a “retarded t**t” (a little rich coming from a man whose own mental state has been the target of many diagnoses from amateur psychologists).
All that was straightforward abuse, as easily understood in Texas, where Musk now lives, as in Dublin.
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But then, like a Gaeilgeoir reverting to his native Irish, O’Leary lapsed into a way of speaking that, while familiar to us, must have been completely alien to the Tesla and SpaceX owner, not to mention his friend in the White House.
It was what we call self-deprecation: a form of humour in which O’Leary accepted the insults, as from a fellow idiot, and assured Musk that his low opinion was shared by many people on this side of the Atlantic, including O’Leary’s own children.
Then, in classic Ryanair style, he exploited the resulting publicity via a “Big Idiots” January seat sale, with himself and Musk in joint starring roles.
As with his flights, O’Leary’s sense of humour is typically targeted at short-haul destinations, such as Government Buildings, Brussels and Nigel Farage. So the tactic must have caused great confusion in Texas.
I can imagine a Musk adviser having to explain the strange turn his shouting match with O’Leary had taken. “British humor”, they probably called it.
[ Ryanair would install wi-fi if Musk’s company foots the bill, O’Leary saysOpens in new window ]
In fact, in this case, it may have had Greek origins. I never before saw the Ryanair chief executive as a follower of the Stoics, or philosophy in general. And yet his strategy here was straight from the playbook of Epictetus (c.50-135AD), who once advised followers:
“If you learn that someone is speaking ill of you, don’t try to defend yourself against the rumours; respond instead with, ‘Yes, and he doesn’t know the half of it because he could have said more’.”
Wondering if this stemmed from a love of classics, born of O’Leary’s time in Clongowes Wood College, I took to rereading Alan Ruddock’s 2007 biography of him: A Life in Full Flight.
And although it doesn’t seem to mention Epictetus, the book reminded me that, despite being widely considered a bit of a loudmouth in Ireland, O’Leary has been practising self-deprecation for decades.
Here he is recalling his lack of athletic prowess at sports-mad Clongowes: “[I] couldn’t understand bloody basketball but then I was about four feet nothing so for basketball I was kind of physically challenged. I was more likely to have been the ball. But I tried hard ... I was tiny on the rugby pitch, so I finished up in the super thirds, which was for plodders.”
And here he is on his lack of academic achievement (apparently a strategy in itself):
“If you were in the top 10 per cent you were a swot. If you were in the bottom 10 per cent you were a moron. [You were] much better off to be in the middle ... In a f**ked-up way, I was nobody in school. I was common Joe Soap. I’m still common Joe Soap. I just got lucky a couple of times.”
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It’s striking that even when being modest, O’Leary avoids prideful extremes. This seems to be in keeping with a later school of stoicism, as once expressed by the Israeli prime minister Golda Meir to general Moshe Dayan: “Don’t be humble. You’re not that great.”
Self-deprecation used to be common enough in the US too. It was and remains a cornerstone of Jewish comedy, at least, as exemplified by Woody Allen, Larry David or Sarah Silverstein. But you don’t hear it much in Trump’s America, where self-aggrandisement is very much the norm.
The tone is set by the well-named president, who never misses a chance to blow his own trumpet, and is noisily confident even when sounding the retreat from his almost daily changes of mind.
As long ago as the 1920s, however, the “Sage of Baltimore”, HL Mencken, made a habit of lampooning what he saw as the American impulse for grandiose self-assertion, and the country’s addiction to leaders who indulged it.
Mencken is today most often quoted for his prophetic vision (in 1920) that: “On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.”
Despite a love of misanthropic bombast, however, Mencken could also do self-deprecation, after a fashion. “It is inaccurate to say that I hate everything,” he once wrote. “I am strongly in favor of common sense, common honesty, and common decency. This makes me forever ineligible for public office.”
